Grupenet

One of the great features of Ubuntu and other Linux distributions is the ability to include third party application updates alongside regular operating system level software updates. Both Windows and Mac OS X are somewhat lacking in this area, with Windows as the higher-lacking of the two.

Fortunately on the OS X side, software developer metaquark has released an application by the name of AppFresh which aims to fill the gap of the need for a central application updater.

Currently, AppFresh is available as a Development Preview, so it is recommended that you back up all of your applications before using AppFresh if you intend to use the built-in update installer. If you’d rather stay on the safe side, AppFresh can still be used to check for and download updates excluding the automatic update installer process.

AppFresh also includes integration of iusethis.com. This allows AppFresh to also check for updates to applications that are not natively supported but are listed in the iusethis database. It also allows you to easily add new apps to your iusethis profile without having to search for each app beforehand.

Another interesting feature is the ability to take a “snapshot” of an application, which captures the current version of the application along with the application data and preferences. It’s basically Time Machine for your apps.

More information can be found at the AppFresh website.

For the most part, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has been received very well by users compared to its rival, Windows Vista. Though this is all fine and dandy, Leopard is not without its flaws.

I’ve noticed that every time I install a new application, the icon does not show up in my Applications stack. So, in order to fix the broken application icon, we have this temporary solution:

Open up Terminal (found in the Utilities folder), type killall Dock (make sure “D” is capitalized) and press enter. This will restart your dock and fix the application icon. You will need to do this every time you install an application and find the application icon broken.

Being a new Mac switcher, I of course found myself installing Windows using Boot Camp so I can run those couple applications that are only available in the Windows world. The first time I booted out of my Boot Camp partition and back into Mac OS X I noticed my time had been offset by about 5 hours. After a bit of googling I found that Windows uses a different time scheme and thus changes the internal hardware clock every time I boot into Windows which ends up screwing up the time displayed in Mac OS X the next time I boot into it.

I found a quick and easy little hack on how to fix this problem thanks to a commenter on this blog post.

First, boot into your Boot Camp partition. Open up Notepad and copy and paste the following:

@echo off
net time /setsntp:tick.usno.navy.mil
net stop w32time
net start w32time

Save this as a .bat (batch) file. Now find your saved batch file and drag it into your “Startup” folder in your Start menu. Now every time you start up Windows, it will fix the time offset automatically.

On a side note, sorry for the very long delay in posts lately.

Enjoy using Photo Booth to take pictures using your iSight? You may have noticed how Photo Booth can get a bit cluttered with pictures you’ve taken over time. Here’s a couple tips on how to export and remove pictures from Photo Booth.

A tip before you start:
To select many pictures at once in the Finder, type Command + A to select all pictures. Now hold down the Command key and click on any pictures you want to deselect.

Export pictures

Start by selecting a picture in Photo Booth and typing Command + R. This will open the folder containing the pictures in the Finder. Select the pictures you want to export and drag and drop them into an album in iPhoto (assuming you’re using iPhoto to manage your photos).

Delete pictures

Begin with the same procedure as with exporting by clicking on a picture and typing Command + R. Select any pictures you don’t want and type Command + Delete. Refer to the above tip for how to easily select many pictures at once.

Update (09/19/2007):
Someone has created an AppleScript to automatically import Photo Booth pictures into iPhoto.